


Think Carefully

by LadyKes



Series: Different Perspectives [3]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Gen, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6070621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKes/pseuds/LadyKes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miss Fisher considers an event in her past - and the possibility that she may actually have met Detective Inspector Jack Robinson before 1928 after all.  Flashback story to WWI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Think Carefully

It was the PLP that did it. 

Jack had known immediately that PLP meant pulp and that pulp was code for an assassination order. She’d let it go in that moment since it wasn’t relevant to the case at hand, but later it had bothered her. How had he known that if he was just a Digger? And then she realized that he’d never exactly said he was just a Digger. He’d let everyone believe it, if the subject of his service came up, but he’d never come right out and confirmed it.

So that settled it. Jack Robinson had done at least a bit of intelligence work in the Great War, she was sure of it. And, as it happened, she’d done a bit of intelligence work too, which was remarkably dangerous since she had been a noncombatant volunteer nurse and ambulance driver. The Huns looked very poorly on those who might be using the Geneva Convention guidelines as a cover for other activities. But she’d spoken French and English with no appreciable accent in either language and had always been willing to do out of the ordinary things, so it only made sense that eventually someone would ask her to use her skills in a different way.

And thinking about that made her think about something she’d always wondered about, ever since she’d first heard Detective Inspector Jack Robinson’s voice in Lydia Andrews’ hallway…

\-----

It was the end of July 1916 and the war was going very badly for them all. They’d originally said it would be over by Christmas 1914, but it was showing no signs of ever being over, god help them all. Phryne had driven her ambulance over rutted roads back and forth from trenches to field hospitals more times than she could count that day, and she’d pulled sheets over the heads of more boys than she wanted to count that week, especially Australian boys.

She was exhausted, frankly, and she very much wanted to collapse into her bed fully clothed regardless of the blood and worse stains. Unfortunately, a very young, very nervous lad had just summoned her to the commanding officer’s tent.

She put on a mostly fresh apron and fresh cuffs, then squelched through the muck to the tent, calling out a relatively cheerful “Bienvenue” when she reached it.

“S'il vous plaît entrer,” she heard the commander call out, and she stepped through the flap with the smile Commandant Coyea would expect of her. She stopped just inside of it, though, because the lights were down very low, even with wartime precautions. After a moment her eyes adjusted and she realized two more things: there was a second figure in the shadows of the tent and he didn’t seem very inclined to come out.

“Sister, thank you for your promptness,” Commandant Coyea greeted her, and that was the next strange thing. He would not normally have spoken English, though his was quite good, if slightly accented, and he would have said her name.

“Of course, Commandant,” she replied graciously. “What can I do for you?”

“I think it is more what you can do for us,” he said, and she understood that the us meant the shadowed man in the corner. 

“What can I do for you both, then?” she amended her statement, though she was even more curious now.

“This man - we will call him John Smith - must deliver a message,” Commandant Coyea said, motioning to the man in the corner. She raised an eyebrow to let the Commandant know that if that man’s name was really John Smith, she’d eat her dirty apron, and he offered her a Gallic shrug in return.

“And I suppose he can’t deliver it in the usual ways?” she suggested. She was starting to see the shape of this situation, she thought, and she in some ways hoped she was wrong.

“Ah, no, that is not possible,” the Commandant said firmly. “So we would like your help. You do not have to agree, and if you do not agree, you may leave this tent and we will speak no more about it. Think carefully, Sister.”

That he was so adamant that she think about it before he said anything else confirmed it for her. John Smith was a spy or intelligence agent of some type and she was about to do something not entirely allowed by her current position. It was probably something that would get her killed, actually, if she was ever caught.

Of course she’d do it. 

“What do you need, Commandant Coyea?” she replied firmly, and saw relief and admiration wash across his face before he explained what she would need to do in exceeding detail. John Smith never spoke and she never saw his face, but she could see him nod or shake his head within the shadows a few times. She knew it was safer for them all if she didn’t know his face or anything else about him, but she did note that he had high cheekbones and a strong jaw.

The next day, she was casually tasked with driving a wagon full of bodies to another field hospital, closer to the front and very close to the AIF headquarters. John Smith was one of the bodies in the back of her wagon, though she didn't know which one. She’d glanced at their dirty, bloody faces (too young, all of them, even the ones who were older) before she’d covered them with a sheet and wondered which one was actually alive. She couldn’t tell, which meant he was very good at what he did. 

The journey to the other hospital was harrowing, not least because of the many checkpoints she had to go through, some of which were not entirely friendly. She spoke her most brusque French to convince the sentries to let her pass, but there was a moment when one of them decided to bayonet the bodies in her wagon to be sure that they were really dead. She couldn’t stop them, so she only hoped John Smith wasn’t one of the ones they bayoneted. She slowed the horse once she thought they were far enough away from the checkpoint and then glanced back. No fresh bloodstains.

“Êtes-vous vivant?” she called quietly, and heard a small chuckle back.

“Oui,” the sheet replied, and she wasn’t all that startled to hear an Aussie accent to his French. She’d thought he might be a Digger given where she was going with him, but there was really no telling in this place. 

They reached the hospital after being shelled only three more times, during which she crouched by the side of the wagon praying that she, the horse, and Mr. Smith survived. When they finally reached the relative safety of the other field hospital, she drove the wagon to the morgue as instructed. A sister she didn’t recognize stood outside and Phryne offered the passcode she’d been taught. If it wasn’t answered correctly, she’d know that this sister wasn’t the one meant to meet Mr. Smith, and in that case she had orders to ask for a different one.

“An unfortunate load for you, Sister,” she said, and nearly sighed with relief when the woman responded with, “They’re all unfortunate.”

She hopped down out of the wagon and helped the sister and an orderly transfer the various bodies to the temporary morgue. She still didn’t know which one was John Smith and he still didn’t give any sign that he was alive. 

When she was done offloading, she paused and spoke to the darkness of the morgue. 

“Go with whatever god you believe in, Mr. Smith, if you can still believe in one after all this.”

She didn’t hear anything in response at first and knew she probably wouldn’t, but as she turned away after a few seconds, she heard a deep voice say,

“And you, Sister.”

She nearly wept. He was Melburnian. In the middle of this terrible war, in this terrible place, this was a man she might have seen at the footy. They could have argued over Collingwood’s chances next year. But she could say no more and neither could he, so she stepped back into the light to make the return journey to her hospital. And later, when someone from the RAAF recruited her for further missions with the detail that they’d heard she was good under pressure, she wondered who John Smith had been and who he had told. 

\----

Nearly fifteen years later, she was sitting in her beautiful parlor, as far away from that war as it was possible to be when she still remembered it so vividly. She had a martini in her hand and had just finished discussing the conclusion of their latest case with Detective Inspector Jack Robinson. The conversation had lulled comfortably and she decided to ask.

“Jack,” she began, and he tilted his head inquiringly. “The case with Mr. Spall some weeks ago.”

He didn’t say anything, but he continued to look attentive.

“I’m not going to ask any questions that would violate the Official Secrets Act.”

“I would hope not, Miss Fisher,” he noted repressively, but she was rarely repressed. 

“That case, though - it was an unfortunate load, wasn’t it?” she asked quietly, and saw his face twitch just slightly. 

“They’re all unfortunate, Miss Fisher,” he replied, and raised his martini to her.


End file.
